Various systems and applications have been developed to provide electronic mail (e-mail) and calendar maintenance functions to users. Some systems make use of an application running on a user workstation, such as OUTLOOK EXPRESS® available from Microsoft Corp. (OUTLOOK EXPRESS is a trademark of Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash.). The application retrieves incoming e-mail through an internet connection and displays a list of incoming notes. The user may select one or more notes to read, delete, save, or forward to another user. Similarly the application allows a user to compose an outgoing e-mail note and send it through he same internet connection. Copies of the incoming and outgoing notes may generally be saved on either the user's workstation, or on a server supporting the internet connection, or both.
Other systems use an ordinary internet browser running on a user workstation to provide similar functions. Still others may use an ordinary browser with some modification to facilitate e-mail and calendar maintenance (calendaring) functions.
Some applications are specifically developed to provide e-mail and calendaring for numerous employees in a company. LOTUS NOTES® available from International Business Machines Corp. (LOTUS NOTES is a trademark of International Business Machines Corp.) is one example of such an application. The individual notes and calendar entries are stored in a database running on a server such as the DOMINO® server software (DOMINO is a trademark of International Business Machines Corp.) a copy or replica of the stored notes and calendar entries may also be kept on a user's workstation to permit standalone operation, for example when the connection to the server, or the server itself is unavailable due to overload or breakdown.
Some of the information contained in these notes and calendar entries may be extremely valuable, particularly in the case of a large company where critical business information may be held by numerous employees at various locations. Other business applications may benefit from having access to the information kept in this server database, however no means is readily available to provide such access without extensive coding effort by the developers of the other application. For example, a note or calendar entry document may have sections, attachments, image tags, and links to other items in the document. Ordinary document retrieval using a browser will not make these sections, attachments, images, or links usable to the application using a browser for retrieval.
While data stored by a mail and calendaring application is of primary interest, data stored by any application may be of value to other applications if the data can be made visible in a readily discernable manner.
It would therefore be a significant accomplishment if a system or method were developed to easily provide such information to other applications. Furthermore, other applications may be running on computer systems which do not have the first application installed or available for use. It would therefore be a desirable feature to provide such information without making use of the first application. It is believed that this would constitute a significant advancement in the data retrieval arts.